University Mohamed I, Media Studies

Faculty of Letters Semester 4 Gr: 7-8

English Department Prof: M.Elkouche
Oujda

Some Illustrative Notes

- ‘Media Studies’ is a domain of inquiry that is concerned with the study and
exploration of the means of communication and the institutions of providing
and disseminating information and ‘knowledge’.

- Media include the following: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema

and the Internet. (The term ‘media’ is the plural of the word ‘medium’ ; but it
can be used both as a plural and singular noun)

- Though ‘Media Studies’ is an independent field or discipline, it can be

subsumed under the larger domain of ‘Cultural Studies’. Media are
themselves, in a sense , cultural products; and they play a major role in
producing and propagating cultural meanings and norms.

- Media have a huge effect on humans. They contribute to shaping their minds,
perceptions, worldviews and their identities as well.

- Media are strongly associated with ideology because they are often
manipulated in such a way as to influence or even shape the views of people
and the ‘public opinion’.

- Media discourses are often ideological: They do not reflect reality objectively or
neutrally; they rather construct and make up this ‘reality’. Hence the
importance of studying and exploring the ways media produce and spread
ideology.

- The concepts of ‘Communication’ and ‘Representation’ are very central in

the field of Media Studies.

- Communication, as the Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies defines it, ‘‘is

concerned with the production, consumption and the exchange of meaning.’’

- Meanings are social and cultural ideas and assumptions that are expressed
and communicated through the use of signs. ‘Language’ is the most important
sign that is used in human communication.

- The language used in Media is not necessarily verbal, it can also be visual and
‘textual’ (an image on a TV screen or a caricature on a newspaper can be seen
as a text that communicate much meaning)

- Representation, insofar as Media Studies is concerned, has to do with the use

of signs, like words and images, to represent things or reality in general.

- Representation an be seen as re-presentation –which means presenting again-

by using those signs. This is often associated with the process of ‘construction’
of cultural and idedological meanings. Hence the notion that represenations
may be just ‘misrepresentations’ and ideological constructs.